


My Heart Gone Silent

by wirewrappedlily



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, i just felt like having the sass-masters and Pete there, not actually a crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 13:44:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/887954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"She's in pain, Oliver. Either kiss it better or let her go." </p><p>He couldn't stop turning that over in his mind as he trained--maybe a little harder than usual. He dropped to the ground and took stock of the foundry without her in it. </p><p>With her missing, he wanted to search her out and see what she was doing, just be near her; the air was too silent for him, but there was something else missing...some tension that he hadn't been catching. It hadn't been there when they'd first met, he knew that because he could remember that day with stunning clarity. It'd grown, and thrived. It was an ache that took him by surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Heart Gone Silent

It drove Oliver a little nuts that Felicity cared so much that he got hurt. 

Sure, it was sweet, and she meant well: she cared about his well-being. But a few bruises and she panicked; a few bullet holes and he admitted he had to go to the doctor. Their standards of 'hurt' were wildly different, and he knew that it drove her a little nuts that Oliver didn't care for the scrapes and bruises at all. That was the problem with someone caring about you: not that he was complaining, he hadn't actually had to explain any injury to anyone in a little long, like Thea and his mother and Laurel had just accepted that Oliver was beaten up in some small way. So long as he wasn't in the hospital; they seemed happy. 

But Felicity didn't stop. She talked about making new bows with blades on the end he could use in combat; she doodled his hood suit and he caught her researching bulletproof material; she got him heat packs and cool packs and holistic healing stuff that she kept claiming she needed _someone_ to test the stuff out on who could tell her if it actually helped heal. 

She cared so much it hurt him sometimes, her worry a presence at his side as he dove through the night, or rode with the wind through his hair, firing arrows into the sunset. 

She and Digg had started joking about how she was a mother hen; but it'd never felt motherly to Oliver. It felt like the waiting breath of someone who'd give almost anything to keep the one they cared about safe from harm. It felt like the quiet dull of a life spent waiting for the other shoe to drop; for the loss to come. It felt a lot like love in war, and Oliver knew he couldn't give her some kind of solace from it: he still loved Laurel. He was fairly certain, after five years with nothing but her picture to keep him on this earth, that he'd never stop loving her. 

Felicity had her Freudian slips, and sometimes Oliver didn't know if she fully intended to say them, just to rattle him; or if they were actually coming out of her mouth without the consent of her brain. Eventually, it didn't matter. They were playing: Oliver was with Laurel, and Felicity seemed almost like a cheerleader, throwing him and Digg at Laurel and Carly with chirpy joy. Oliver wondered if she'd share the news if she ever got a boyfriend; if she already had one from the fiasco with the judge, jury and executioner riding the subway rails. And wondering if she would made him really, really want to know. He tried for older brotherly, but it didn't sit right. Protective best friend, perhaps, but she couldn't be a sister to him; he knew there were lines with Felicity that Thea and he couldn't draw, that he was close, but not that close. 

The way she talked, giving drips and drabs of information about herself in the deluge of everything else, began to irritate him immensely--mostly because he clued in to the fact that he never asked her. He didn't talk to her, and he felt like a dick for it. He'd offered her an ear for her to tell him about her day, but if he didn't know her friends or her family; if he had no idea who the creep at the watercooler was or which actor Felicity desperately wanted, how could he really listen? How could he understand her without knowing her? It wasn't just him and his world that was her world; she had one of her own. 

So Oliver wanted to know what her favourite kind of food was; what her favourite movie was and why. He learned that when she laughed honestly, it was more of a snort; and her fake laugh twisted something in his chest when he heard it. She admired women with short hair, but didn't have the guts to try it herself; she had a love-hate relationship with high heels that had once almost made him fall down the stairs because she was at the bottom, in her slinky black dress, bent over to slip them delicately off her feet, padding around space that was really still his barefoot with her heels in her hand and her hair loose around her shoulders. She was actually happier when it rained, whether she knew it was raining or not; and she was a compendium of movie knowledge that, more often than not, would also have her nose buried in a book. She only talked with her hands when tipsy, and alcohol made her sleepy; she hated her birthday, but would buy herself cupcakes for the occasion and quietly give one to Digg, himself, and Oliver's bouncer, Tim. She tried to limit her caffeine intake to none after four in the afternoon, but that didn't work well; she liked her mornings full of music and/or silence, not idle chatter; and she'd proposed marriage to her bed at some point in the past, which was something Digg seemed to understand more than Oliver. 

The more he learned, the more she let him see. Her lips had a habit of twitching when she was tense, and her hair was an "unfortunate, mousy brown"--that she told him in no uncertain terms he would never see. She only ever sang when she was listening to something and unaware of singing at all, and her voice was oddly haunting for as untrained as she was. 

Before long, Oliver knew Felicity better than he did himself; but she made up for it by knowing him. She swooped in to save him when Thea had a party; cutting a swathe through the young blood and attaching herself to his arm to drag him away from an angry Thea. She arranged a surprise party for him when everyone else forgot: the hideout decked out in streamers, and a movie marathon between just the two of them enjoyed lounging on an old couch, her legs ending up in his lap as she fell asleep, his arms around them as he dropped off, too. 

When Laurel called it quits with him, he went to Felicity. He didn't say anything because she didn't ask, just invited him into her apartment with a quip about how he had to be used to much grander, and a coax to join her for the dinner she was making. 

She babbled idly while he sat and let the fight wash over him, and before he knew it, she was making the couch up as a bed and putting him into it. She rubbed over his hair, giving him a gentle smile, and he suddenly couldn't be without her; couldn't handle the thought of her leaving the room. He grabbed onto her arm, keeping her there, and she knelt next to him, her eyes worried, but open, just as they had been all night. 

She fell asleep curled up against the side of the couch with him holding her hand in a deathgrip as he slept, her other hand on his hair from where she'd brushed through it with her fingers singing him a lullaby that had brought them both down. He woke before even the earliest hours of the morning, before the false dawn, and carried her to her bed carefully, apologies bursting to be let go from his lips for having kept her there like that. She sighed as she shivered into the cold bed, curling up and reaching for a stuffed animal she immediately put under her head for a pillow instead of the four that were there. She was so soft and innocent as he pulled the blankets up around her, it made him ache not to leave. He took her hand, pressing a kiss to her knuckles, and she murmured, squeezing the fingers holding hers. 

He left before dawn, having stared at her, unseeing, for hours. 

There was no fallout after; she didn't ask, just beamed his way when he came into the hideout the next day and gave him a stack of information on who he was hunting and why. When Laurel came to the club a week later to talk to him, it was Felicity on his mind more than reconciling with her. Being with Laurel had taught him that it wasn't her that he loved; it was the idea of her. They weren't the same people who had fallen in love with each other five years ago. 

It wasn't until Carly cornered him in Big Belly that Oliver really thought about what he and Felicity looked like to the outside world. She backed him into the booth as Digg was in the bathroom and stared him dead in the eye, "She's in pain, Oliver. Either kiss it better or let her go." 

He couldn't stop turning that over in his mind as he trained--maybe a little harder than usual. He dropped to the ground and took stock of the foundry without her in it. 

With her missing, he wanted to search her out and see what she was doing, just be near her; the air was too silent for him, but there was something else missing...some tension that he hadn't been catching. It hadn't been there when they'd first met, he knew that because he could remember that day with stunning clarity. It'd grown, and thrived. It was an ache that took him by surprise. He grabbed his jacket without even getting showered or dressed, headed directly out of the hideout and getting on his bike waiting for him in the alley. 

He took the stairs to her apartment three at a time, knocking on her door breathlessly. 

When it opened, Oliver was hit by the scent of paint and the wild giggling of women acting like little girls. Felicity was spattered in paint, her hair in a straggy French plait, and her face devoid of make-up and glasses. She was wearing a thin, too-small shirt and torn off jeans, her feet bare, displaying an ankle bracelet and toe ring. He'd never seen her more beautiful. 

"Oliver? Everything okay?" She slid out of the apartment, half-shutting the door behind her as she did. 

"What...What's going on in there?" He asked as someone screamed in laughter and seemed to have fallen over if the crash was anything to go by. 

"Um...just a paint party." She shrugged, "My friends and I only get to see each other once every six months or so, so we all get together at the apartment of whichever city we're in, and we do what the hell ever we feel like. This time, we throw darts at waterballoons full of paint and try to spray each other. Might not be much of a party for someone like you, but we have wine and we get to curl up with each other and take comfort that all of us are alone together, and we always make each other go deaf with our choices in music, so it's really not much different to your kind of party besides the fact that no one's dancing, and nudity isn't necessary because we've all seen each other naked at least once before. Um...not that there's a lot of nudity at your parties..." 

"I...uh, I shouldn't have come without calling." Oliver stuttered out as the door behind Felicity opened and a curvy redhead stood in the doorway. 

"I think it's a unanimous agreement that had you called, we would've dragged your ass here anyway, handsome." The redhead chirped, not flirtatious, but almost caringly. 

Felicity's lips were twitching up into a smile, and she shook her head, looking back up at Oliver, "Wanna come in?" Oliver found himself utterly unable to say no, the redhead grabbing one half of his jacket and Felicity grabbing the other, pulling him in when he nodded. "Shoes off: Coop, you're about the same size, think you can grab him your extra change of crappy clothes?" 

A tall, dark man grinned blindingly at her, pecking Felicity's forehead, "Absolutely. I'm Coop, by the way." 

"Oliver." Felicity supplied for him. Something passed between Coop's dark eyes and Felicity's light ones, but it was gone before Oliver could sort it out. "This is Hurricane Molly," she pointed to the redhead who'd skipped up to the impromptu bar, her fingers waggling over her shoulder with a smile, "in the corner is Claudia, those three are Morgan, Pete, and Eri; you know Tiny Tim--" 

"Wait...Oliver as in Queen as in Tim's boss?" The second, bobbed, redhead named Claudia asked. 

"As in mine, too, babe." Felicity sighed, gesturing to a tall brunette, "This is Myka, and Pete belongs to her if he gives you trouble; Steve is out getting alcohol, but he belongs to Claudia--or vice versa, because Claudia's the nutter of those two." Claudia threw a dart and spattered Felicity in hot pink paint. "And, Coop?" 

"Present and with shirt. Sorry, might be a bit baggy for you..." 

"No jeans?" Felicity asked right away. 

"No, sorry--" 

"It's okay, I don't care about these anyway." Oliver cut in, trying to stop the rapid-fire conversation he was mostly sure he was supposed to be following. Coop offered him a white shirt that looked perfectly fine, but Oliver shrugged off his jacket into Felicity's hands and pulled it on obediently. 

"You were only wearing your jacket? Are you feeling okay? You're usually in more layers than a Stilinski." 

"Who was running late, sorry." Said a new arrival behind them. Oliver turned in time to see Felicity launch herself into a tall, lithe man's arms, giggling as he dipped her and planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek. "Aw, sadness: you're already covered in paint." 

"Stiles, Oliver. Oliver, Stiles." Felicity waved her arm in the opposite order of introduction, but Stiles grinned at her anyway. "What'd you get me?" 

"A lap dance at work tomorrow by yours truly." Stiles beamed at her as she cackled shrilly. 

"He's gay, you know." Molly muttered to Oliver, coming to stand by his side quietly, "And taken. Extremely taken. You can stop growling." She drifted over to Morgan, murmuring something to him. 

"You really should stop growling." Claudia agreed, "That's the same noise Stiles's boyfriend makes. Like, really. And Fee's kind of short, blond, and having of boobs to be his type."

"Oh, please. Hale has boobs." Molly snorted. 

Stiles's attention snapped to the conversation, and he looked at Molly like he was about to do something terrible. "No! Those are pecs!" Pete piped up, his voice a little boy's whine. 

"He's an anatomically correct diagram of muscle come to life. You're jealous." Felicity shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at Molly. 

"No, I will not have a three-way with you now." Stiles told her sassily. 

Coop raised his hand, "As a muscle-bound constituant here, I gotta say that you're no longer my favourite, Molly." 

"Yeah, me too." Pete agreed. 

Felicity looked from Coop to Pete with a raised brow, and Pete crossed his arms over his chest defensively. Felicity smiled at him, not unkindly, and he huffed out of his nose. "There needs to be painting going on here." Molly muttered, handing Oliver a dart, looking bored. Every open piece of wall in the apartment had been covered in canvas and balloons filled with paint; the floors and couches and everything else covered in protective plastic and throwaway sheets. It was the canvas and each other the party was aiming for, so Oliver took aim at a balloon, spattering yellow paint over the silent Eri, Morgan, and Myka. Myka grinned at him, taking a dart of her own and casting blue just shy of reaching Stiles and Felicity. From there, everyone joined in, Morgan pulling Oliver aside to get him a drink before a perfectly aimed dart splashed blue over Oliver's head. Felicity was grinning when he turned to see the culprit, and he went over to her, picking her up bodily to rub the blue off his cheeks onto her stomach as she screamed. 

Stiles turned on him then, and Eri, the two of them taking a half-empty bucket of red and dumping it over him, Felicity squealing as she raised her hand to protect herself from the cast-off. Oliver shook under the deluge of paint, splattering over everyone else as much he could, acting like a wet dog and grinning wildly as he did. Felicity was having trouble breathing for laughing so hard, her arm flinging out and bringing Claudia down with her in a slick of paint as she fell over laughing, the two of them on the receiving end of a bucket of yellow Pete threw their way. Oliver reached down and helped Felicity up, pulling her against his chest and laughing in her ear, his smile huge and wicked. "Best party ever." 

Oliver didn't remember much the next day past the three in the morning mark, but he was showered and naked in bed with Felicity, who was showered and in pyjamas in his arms. He reached back for some small image of how he'd come to be showered, and had a vision of blonde hair under his cheek, but he couldn't be sure. She was curled up against his chest, though, her hands hanging onto his arms in a way that kept them wrapped around her. She looked peaceful, her eyelashes against her cheeks and her mouth soft. He breathed in deep, wrapped up in the scent of her shampoo and covered with the warmth of her skin, in her bed. He knew it was exhaustion that took the rest of the night away from him; he hadn't gotten drunk, despite Molly's best efforts, but the laughter and life that had poured like a torrent into his life from those insane and strangely beautiful people had overloaded him, tiring him out more than he had been in a long time. 

Felicity sighed in his arms, adjusting the way she was holding onto him and bringing his hand up to her mouth. She kissed the base of his thumb, curling tighter around him like he'd simply leave her, and Oliver pulled the arm tighter in, dragging her along with it, to kiss her hair, her cheek. Felicity turned in his arms, and he kissed her mouth before she could say anything, his calloused fingers brushing over her cheek and tracing down her throat. 

It all hit him in the movement of her mouth, soft and hesitant, against his. He'd felt this way for her for too long: he'd wanted to be here, in her bed, in her warmth, since before Laurel and he had even fallen apart. The ache to be with her, to be close, only really left him with her lips against his, her sigh brushing his cheek. 

"I love you." He told her shakily the moment they'd stopped. She made a small noise of protest, kissing him again. "I do. I love you." 

Felicity finally opened her eyes, looking at him like she was looking for a fault in the ground beneath her. "I...God, Oliver, I love you, too." She whispered, pushing into him until he was on his back, her hair a curtain over one shoulder. "I love you so damn much." 

He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her close as they kissed, hard and desperate to loose and lazy as the minutes turned to an hour. He'd swept her shirt off, their bare skin pressed together, but he didn't want to fall into sex with her; wanted to take his time making her know how much he loved her. He was more than happy to simply kiss her, her soft skin under his hands as he found out what sounds he could get from her throat.

She lay in his arms when they finally broke apart to catch their breath, tracing pictures over his chest and drawing lines of kisses over the shoulder her cheek would rest on. "Thank you for last night." She muttered, resting her cheek down for a minute before moving down slightly and drawing more kisses over his skin. 

"Felicity, that was the most fun I've had in a very, very long time. You're the one I need to be thanking, not the other way around." He told her, a smile in his voice but his tone in all seriousness. He brushed her hair back, kissing her forehead softly because her lips were on his chest. 

"Yeah, but," Oliver brought Felicity's lips to his the moment she raised her head to talk, "I know my nutjobs are a bit much to handle." She explained, lowering her head again and licking over the curve of definition for his pectoral, biting down on the muscle lightly. 

Oliver drew in a breath, his hand curling into a fist as pleasure tensed through him. "Felicity." He drew her back up, brushing his fingers through her hair. 

"You don't want to have sex with me." 

"That is not the problem. That's the opposite of the problem. But I want to take my time, I want to prove to you that I love you, that I'm not going anywhere." He kissed her chastely, leaning their foreheads together, "I'm yours now, Felicity Smoak." 

Felicity's fingers curled against his shoulder before she pulled his mouth back to hers, kissing long and hard. His arm tightened around her waist, and she moaned, brushing her thumb through the scruff on his cheek and moaning softly as he sucked on her tongue. She giggled when they broke off, panting, "I swear, you were put on this earth to make me go nuts."


End file.
